Budget

Competition Date

The current educational center and its most
recent expansion seem to announce a first solution for a new expansion. A
U-shaped volume – a scheme justified in finding the best light for teaching –
attached symmetrically to the last building, could solve the need for a
playground that the program also required. This accepted U-shaped piece opts,
however, for going against such an announcement, turning to stand facing El
Salvador Church, one of the most urban buildings of the place. This makes one
of the wings of the U-shape behave as a connective element, allowing these
units to be used by both buildings. In this shift, the new extension of the
Public School for Primary Education Ave Maria-Patxi Larrainzar shows its smoother
skin where the new courtyard opens up and creates a place to play, encouraging
the sensitive development of the child, communication with peers and the
relationship with the city itself. Its most urban facet chooses to fold, as a
screen, transforming its entire intimacy into an origami game that helps develop
a new public space.

The plot had an irregular shape
and a height difference of 180 cm between its farthest points. The urban and
topographic premises determine a U-shaped building that generates a playground
in its interior. This space is open to the existing square that El Salvador
Church now shares with the new school.

There are two distinct
entrances, access for parents and teachers is from the pedestrian street, and
the main access for children is through the square shared with El Salvador
Church, from where a ramp leads to the school playground. The most urban facade
reconstructs the street, it tries to become more friendly through a play of
folds in its great length, and it fills the public space with light.

The structure consists of
concrete planar frames, except at the roof level, where the structure is
metallic. The facades are made of a white silicon monolayer on double hollow
brick, an air chamber partly occupied by thermal insulation, clad with a tiled
plinth up to the height of the doors. The roof of the building is designed with
a sandwich panel. The woodwork on the openings of the facades are resolved
mostly with casement windows with anodized aluminum, the blinds are also
aluminum painted white. The interior woodwork is composed mostly of medium
density fiberboard with white formica finish.

The roofs, continuous and
suspended, are plasterboard with a hidden substructure. The floors are resolved
through white micrograin terrazzo tiles.